US President Bush's announcement of the “glide path” agreement to cooperate with India on key areas like civilian nuclear activities, space programme and high technology trade is a welcome step in building what senior officials in the US State Department described as the “strategic partnership” between the US and India. This agreement and its announcement has been awaited for some time now and Washington, perhaps, was looking for a thaw in Indo-Pak ties for which Colin Powell has already claimed credit! It is good that the US has clarified that this agreement has nothing to do with India’s nuclear weapons and the programme related to it thus obviating any need for New Delhi to emphasise that its nuclear deterrent is not negotiable.While Washington is unwilling to formally acknowledge India’s nuclear weapon status, it has demonstrated great pragmatism in agreeing to forward movement in other areas of overlapping concern. There is need to recognise that while the agreement, described by President Bush as an “important milestone”, opens the door to trade and cooperation in areas so far taboo in US thinking, actual progress would take quite some time to show results on the ground. But it is important to note that both sides have agreed to take serious reciprocal steps to make progress. The principle of reciprocity in the agreement makes it incumbent on both sides to initiate appropriate measures if President Bush’s goal of cooperating for peace and prosperity in Asia is to be achieved. This would also imply that while expanded engagement would cover specific steps by us to protect diversion or unauthorised use of any US exports to India, the US would also find ways to open the path to boosting nuclear power for development if the vision of prosperity drawn up by Bush is to bear fruit. In simple terms, India would have to strengthen its export control regime, not only in areas directly concerned with weapons of mass destruction, but also in many other segments that would flow from the new agreement. This should not cause any problem for us since India has not believed in proliferation of WMD technology and materials and has maintained an impeccable record of non-proliferation.Nuclear science and technology is increasingly vital to modern society. At the same time, given the recent disclosures of how Pakistan has actively spread even its limited assets of nuclear science, technology and materials, including human resources, to assist other countries to pursue a nuclear weapons programme, concerns of future proliferation are real. This is what makes it so important for the world to look afresh at the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime so that responsible states could work together to make the future safer and more prosperous.
